Thursday, September 01, 2005
08/29/05 Monday - Tok to Kluane
08/29/05 Monday
Today it is Tok to Kluane. Our travel buddies were Ed and JoAnne Knight. They are probably the youngest people on the caravan, they b both retired at age 55. They are from New Castle, PA, which is near Pittsburgh. We are staying in Kluane Wilderness village and RV Park. We left at 8:30 AM and had just less than 200 miles to drive. All of the drive was on the Alaskan Highway. We traveled about 90 miles and came to the Canadian Border. There was a fuel stop about three miles before the border and we topped our tank off. It only took a little over 12 gallons, but it probably saved us about fifty cents a gallon.
There was a guy in a U-Haul truck who got looked at for about 25 minutes getting through customs. They had a huge line of people waiting by the time they finished with him. The finally opened another lane and started using two agents to get the line through. 
All together it took us forty-five minutes to get through customs. That has never happened to us before. We have always just moved right through. We stopped at a truck stop motel in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory and had lunch.
For most of the day we traveled along the Kluane Mountain range. They are big mountains and a large number of the peaks are snow covered. Some of the lower slopes and the lower peaks have a powdering of new snow that must have fallen within the last couple of nights. I would not be surprised if we get snow before we are out of Canada. We saw a lot of fall color on the mountains. Even the Aspen trees are starting to turn yellow.
We saw only some swans in one of the little lakes along the road for our wildlife adventure. We haven’t seen wildlife in a few weeks. I think that we travel during the wring time of day. Also some of the animals change their habitat from summer to winter and they may be gone by now.
We arrived at our campground about 3:30 PM. We changed back into the Pacific Time Zone when we came back into Canada. I was glad to get here. The road is really rough and you have to constantly be alert for ground swells and construction. It is not easy to drive here
Mary met a wood carver who lives and has a shop in the RV Park where we were staying. He carved a special kind of wood called Burl. Burl starts as an irritation on Black Spruce trees, which are common to this area.
The tree sends extra sap to the affected area to help it heal. This sap starts and grows into the burl.. The burl may be cut green or taken from dead trees. Sometimes burls are just peeled of their bark and use for many purposes like fence posts. They may be carved into many things like furniture, walking canes, or bowls. Mary made a picture of some of his work that he had exhibited at his shop. Burl sounds a lot like a pine knot don’t it? Just think, we used to just burn them for kindling!!
Today it is Tok to Kluane. Our travel buddies were Ed and JoAnne Knight. They are probably the youngest people on the caravan, they b both retired at age 55. They are from New Castle, PA, which is near Pittsburgh. We are staying in Kluane Wilderness village and RV Park. We left at 8:30 AM and had just less than 200 miles to drive. All of the drive was on the Alaskan Highway. We traveled about 90 miles and came to the Canadian Border. There was a fuel stop about three miles before the border and we topped our tank off. It only took a little over 12 gallons, but it probably saved us about fifty cents a gallon.
There was a guy in a U-Haul truck who got looked at for about 25 minutes getting through customs. They had a huge line of people waiting by the time they finished with him. The finally opened another lane and started using two agents to get the line through. 
All together it took us forty-five minutes to get through customs. That has never happened to us before. We have always just moved right through. We stopped at a truck stop motel in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory and had lunch.For most of the day we traveled along the Kluane Mountain range. They are big mountains and a large number of the peaks are snow covered. Some of the lower slopes and the lower peaks have a powdering of new snow that must have fallen within the last couple of nights. I would not be surprised if we get snow before we are out of Canada. We saw a lot of fall color on the mountains. Even the Aspen trees are starting to turn yellow.
We saw only some swans in one of the little lakes along the road for our wildlife adventure. We haven’t seen wildlife in a few weeks. I think that we travel during the wring time of day. Also some of the animals change their habitat from summer to winter and they may be gone by now.We arrived at our campground about 3:30 PM. We changed back into the Pacific Time Zone when we came back into Canada. I was glad to get here. The road is really rough and you have to constantly be alert for ground swells and construction. It is not easy to drive here
Mary met a wood carver who lives and has a shop in the RV Park where we were staying. He carved a special kind of wood called Burl. Burl starts as an irritation on Black Spruce trees, which are common to this area.
The tree sends extra sap to the affected area to help it heal. This sap starts and grows into the burl.. The burl may be cut green or taken from dead trees. Sometimes burls are just peeled of their bark and use for many purposes like fence posts. They may be carved into many things like furniture, walking canes, or bowls. Mary made a picture of some of his work that he had exhibited at his shop. Burl sounds a lot like a pine knot don’t it? Just think, we used to just burn them for kindling!!
